Head Start Finds Itself Homeless

May 15, 1992|By Joseph Kirby.

The fate of a northwest suburban Head Start program is in doubt this week because the building being used by the program is being taken over by Arlington Heights Elementary School District 25 to house students displaced by construction work.

Administrators of the Head Start program, which services nearly 160 children from the Arlington Heights area, made a public plea Thursday in an effort to find a new facility to avoid jeopardizing the beginning of classes next year.

``We need a new home,`` said Lyle Foster of CEDA Northwest, the organization that oversees the program. ``The Arlington Heights site worked extremely well for us. This puts us in a very compromising position. It`s going to be a struggle to find a place.``

CEDA Northwest`s largest Head Start program was the one operating at 1200 S. Dunton Ave., Arlington Heights. CEDA Northwest had been leasing the space from the school district the last 10 years. The building, in which the Head Start program used 10 classrooms, was the former Dunton School, which was closed down more than a decade ago.

The need to relocate the Head Start program arose as a result of the school district`s $22 million remodeling and expansion program, which seeks to improve its nine schools, said District 25 Supt. Dorothy Weber.

Two schools already have been renovated since the program began, said Weber, and work is set to begin on a third, Dryden School, which will nearly double the size of the 26,000-square-foot facility.

In order to cut costs, avoid construction delays and improve learning conditions for students, district officials decided to move Dryden`s 330 pupils to Dunton.

That action, however, would require at least 14 classrooms and the ouster of some tenants. Along with CEDA Northwest, the building was also used by the Children`s Discovery Center day-care program, the Assembly of God Church and the credit union of Arlington Heights-based High School District 214.

The day-care program was the only group allowed to stay because it used a smaller number of classrooms than CEDA Northwest and it offered to reduce its program, according to Weber.

``It was just an issue of space, nothing else,`` Weber said.

The decision leaves the Head Start program without a home after June 30, when its lease ends.

``It is very important that we keep this program going,`` said Foster.

``It has tremendous benefits, positive impacts and allows children to prepare better for public school.``

Some parents of students in the program assailed the school district and expressed concerns that Head Start was unfairly forced out in favor of the day-care program.

District officials, however, defended their decision, and said that forced relocation of the program was a matter of necessity.

``We were really torn. We are educators and care about all children,``

said Weber. ``We realize it is a very fine program. But our direct responsibility is to District 25 students.``

The CEDA Northwest Head Start program has approximately 300 3- to 5-year- old children enrolled in two half-day sessions, which meet four days a week in a number of northwest suburban locations, Foster said.

The program, which offers early preschool for disadvantaged or low-income children, serves families from Arlington Heights, Palatine, Rolling Meadows, Mt. Prospect, Wheeling and other nearby communities, he said.

Thus far, the program has been unable to find a new site, although it has a few leads. Part of the problem, according to Foster, are the requirements for a new home: It must have close to 10 offices, a play area, kitchen facilities and must be in the nearby area.